Woman in Florida Rape Inquiry Fought Adversity and Sought Acceptance

By FOX BUTTERFIELD with MARY B. W. TABOR

Published: April 17, 1991

Correction Appended

PALM BEACH, Fla., April 16—
The woman who has accused William Kennedy Smith of raping her at the Kennedy estate here was born into a modest working-class family outside Akron, Ohio, but moved sharply up the economic scale 10 years ago after her divorced mother married a wealthy industrialist.

Since then, the young woman, Patricia Bowman, moved from Ohio to Florida, where she held jobs sporadically, took college classes occasionally, had a child and moved into a house near Palm Beach that was bought for her by her stepfather, Michael G. O'Neil, the former chairman of the General Tire and Rubber Company.

It was in Palm Beach more than two weeks ago, at a chic bar Ms. Bowman frequents, that she met Senator Edward M. Kennedy, his son Patrick and Mr. Smith. After returning with them to the Kennedy estate in the early hours of March 30, she later told the police, she was attacked. No Comment on the Case

Mr. O'Neil and Ms. Bowman have declined to discuss the case, and her lawyers did not respond to messages seeking comment today.

The major family changes Ms. Bowman would experience began in 1974. Court records show that her father, Robert Bowman, was a welder at White Motor Company, a truck manufacturer, and that her mother, Jean, was a secretary making less than $200 a week at the time she sued for divorce in 1974. Mrs. Bowman asserted that her husband was physically threatening her.

Mrs. Bowman soon became involved with Mr. O'Neil, whose wealth was listed at $10.3 million when he was divorced in 1981, according to documents filed in the proceedings. Mrs. Bowman was described as the "longstanding girlfriend" in a memorandum submitted by the industrialist's estranged wife and was subpoenaed to testify in the case.

Soon after the divorce the two were married, and Patricia Bowman's new stepfather helped her to make a transition from being an Ohio high school student with below-average grades to a young woman with a leisurely life in South Florida.

In 1989, after she gave birth to a daughter by a local man she did not marry, her stepfather bought for her a new contemporary three-bedroom house with pale peach walls at a cost of $161,800, according to the deed. The house, in Jupiter, 20 miles north of Palm Beach, is not far from the Loxahatchee Club, an exclusive walled community built around a lush, palm-lined golf course and small lakes, where her mother and stepfather live. A uniformed guard at a gatehouse screens all visitors.

After Ms. Bowman, 29 years old, said she had been raped, her stepfather was furious, people who have talked with him said. A blunt-spoken man, he is used to getting his own way, friends say.

"This is not about money," he told a reporter. "This is about justice."

And so he quickly hired two prominent criminal defense lawyers to support his step-daughter.

The case has thus pitted a successful industrialist, Mr. O'Neil, against a wealthy and powerful family. 'A Little Wild Streak'

Ms. Bowman was born on Aug. 11, 1961, in Akron and was an only child. She was 13 when her parents were divorced. Afterward, she and her mother lived in a series of small houses and apartments in the Akron area.

She had a poor academic record at Tallmadge High School, said a school official who spoke on the condition he not be identified. But she was popular socially and "had a little wild streak," said a woman who knew her at the time. That meant that she and her friends liked to drive fast cars, go to parties and skip classes, the friend said.

But in the 10th grade she had to withdraw from school after a serious automobile accident in which she broke her neck, a school official said. She was a passenger in the car.

At the time, a doctor told her she would never walk again, a friend recalled. But three weeks later she walked out of the hospital.

Nevertheless, she had to wear a body brace and she struggled with constant pain caused by arthritis from the accident. This made her self-conscious, but also led her to be "very strong willed, very upbeat" as she tried to overcome the effects of the injury, the friend said. "I think she was more concerned about being accepted by her peers" than with getting good grades, he said.

After a year of treatment, Ms. Bowman, who liked to cook and listen to Bruce Springsteen music, returned to high school in nearby Stow. Then, after graduating, she attended classes at a college in Ohio and talked of becoming an architect, the friend said. But she also talked of moving to Florida to relieve the arthritic pain. "It was hell on her in the wintertime," the friend said.

In 1981, two years after finishing high school, Ms. Bowman did move to Florida.

Even today Ms. Bowman must still take medication to relieve the pain, the friend said, and he added that he had never seen her run. The doctors told her her neck was like glass -- "it's fine crystal," the friend said.

"This wildness you have heard about, it wasn't the same kind of wildness as other people," he said. "She knew her time clock was much more fragile than yours or mine."

During Ms. Bowman's high school years, her mother gradually rose through the ranks at the McNeil Corporation, a manufacturer of machinery for the tire companies of Akron, moving up from secretary, to executive secretary to the president of the company and then to secretary of the corporation. That made her the only female executive of the company. The chairman of one of her company's largest customers, General Tire, was the man she became involved with and eventually married.

A spokesman for the company where she worked, Raymond Keller, remembered her as "a very competent lady. She was a very highly thought of person."

After Ms. Bowman moved to Florida, where her stepfather liked to play golf, she worked briefly at a law firm, a church and at Walt Disney World.

From 1981 to 1990 she also enrolled in a number of liberal arts courses at Palm Beach Community College, though she never received a degree, according to the registrar's office. In addition, while she lived for a time outside Orlando in central Florida in the mid-1980's, she took English classes at the Hamilton Holt School, the continuing education division of Rollins College, a school official said.

But she was still drawn to the Palm Beach area, and in 1989 she had a brief affair with Johnny Butler, the son of a once-prosperous family here that owned a lumber company. The company has since declared bankruptcy.

Mr. Butler was the father of her child, friends say. It is unclear why the couple did not marry.

Although Ms. Bowman is known and introduced around Palm Beach as Patricia O'Neil, her driver's license lists her as Patricia Bowman. Records of the Florida Department of Highway Safety show that she received 17 tickets for speeding, careless driving or being involved in an accident between 1982 and 1990. In several cases she was driving more than 70 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone.

In 10 cases, her license was suspended for her failure to pay the fines assessed for these violations. In one instance her license was suspended, from August 1986 until September 1987, after she was found to be driving without a proper license and for her failure to appear in court. Over the last three years she has been driving a black Mazda sports coupe.

During the 1980's the woman also frequented Palm Beach's expensive bars and nightclubs. "She was always having lots of fun out there on the scene," said Dick Hurley, a former bartender at the 264 bar and now a bartender at the Safari and Polo Club. The Safari and Polo Club sometimes features a black doorman in full African tribal regalia, complete with a headress and a spear.

Another acquaintance, Nathaniel Read, a construction contractor from West Palm Beach who frequents some of the same nightclubs as Ms. Bowman, said, "She liked to drink and have fun with the ne'er-do-wells in cafe society." Mr. Read was at this year's most chic watering hole, Au Bar, on the night Ms. Bowman met Mr. Smith there.

At La Trattoria di Capri, an Italian eatery with primitive murals of peasants on the wall, she struck up an acquaintance with the chef, Enrico Pontirole. One evening a few weeks before the incident at the Kennedy estate, Mr. Pontirole recalled, she came in at midnight after the kitchen was closed and she complained about being hungry.

So Mr. Pontirole went back to his pots and sauces and fixed his speciality, rigatone a la vodka, for her. Later he escorted her to a nearby bar, E. R. Bradley's, but was disappointed when she fell into conversation with several other men, according to Mr. Pontirole. Just 'Hanging Out'

Holly Montgomery, another local resident who was at the nightclub Au Bar on the night that Ms. Bowman met Mr. Smith, recalled that she "was just kind of hanging out." Ms. Montgomery said that she saw Ms. Bowman at the Kennedys' table and that she was not surprised when Ms. Bowman left with Mr. Smith. "How many times a night does that happen in Palm Beach?" she observed.

Ms. Bowman is believed to be staying at the O'Neil house inside the guarded development.

Her own house in Jupiter appears empty, with the blinds drawn, except in her daughter's room. There, on a shelf, are children's books, including a copy of "Babar's Anniversary Album" and "Two Minute Bible Stories."

No such challenge was intended, and The Times regrets that some parts of the article reinforced such inferences.

The article should have explicitly asserted that nothing in the woman's known background could resolve the disputed testimony about her encounter with Mr. Smith. The Times regrets its failure to include such a clear statement of the article's limits and intent.

It remains The Times's practice to guard the identities of sex crime complainants so long as that is possible and conforms to fair journalistic standards. In cases of major political or civic interest, that practice needs to be continually reviewed. And as The Times explained when it finally disclosed the name of the woman in this case, it did so only after her identity became known throughout her community and received detailed nationwide publicity.

(Press issues raised by the Palm Beach case are discussed more fully in an article today on page A14.)

Whenever possible, The Times intends to continue its longstanding practice of withholding the names of sex crime victims while informing its readers in the fullest and fairest ways about major cases.

Correction: April 26, 1991, FridayApril 27, 1991, Saturday An article on April 17 portrayed the life and background of the woman who has accused William Kennedy Smith of rape at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 30. The article drew no conclusions about the truth of her complaint to the police. But many readers inferred that its very publication, including her name and detailed biographical material about her and her family, suggested that The Times was challenging her account. Because of an editing error, an article on April 17 about Patricia Bowman, the woman who has accused William Kennedy Smith of rape, misstated her history at the Tallmadge (Ohio) High School. Although she enrolled for the 1976-77 academic year, she withdrew in the fall; her academic record was compiled elsewhere.